'The Jack Paar Show': 'As I was saying ...'

NBC

Paar, who hosted the show from 1957 to 1962, wasn't one to keep his opinions to himself. That was never more true than in 1960, explains Times staffer Dennis McLellan, when the NBC censor cut Paar's humorous story dealing with a British couple who wanted to rent a cottage and the Swedish real estate agent's confusion over the letters W.C. -- the common British abbreviation for a water closet, which the agent assumed to mean wayside chapel. By then, the show was being taped earlier in the evening and the network censor cut the nearly five-minute story without informing Paar. Paar, concerned that the censored joke made viewers think he had committed a "terrible obscenity," stunned his audience -- and announcer Hugh Downs -- the next night by walking off the show. "I'm leaving 'The Tonight Show,' " an emotional Paar told his audience. "There must be a better way of making a living than this." About four weeks later, after making peace with NBC, Paar was back in front of the cameras and began, "As I was saying before I was interrupted ..."

Paar, who hosted the show from 1957 to 1962, wasn't one to keep his opinions to himself. That was never more true than in 1960, explains Times staffer Dennis McLellan, when the NBC censor cut Paar's humorous story dealing with a British couple who wanted to rent a cottage and the Swedish real estate agent's confusion over the letters W.C. -- the common British abbreviation for a water closet, which the agent assumed to mean wayside chapel. By then, the show was being taped earlier in the evening and the network censor cut the nearly five-minute story without informing Paar. Paar, concerned that the censored joke made viewers think he had committed a "terrible obscenity," stunned his audience -- and announcer Hugh Downs -- the next night by walking off the show. "I'm leaving 'The Tonight Show,' " an emotional Paar told his audience. "There must be a better way of making a living than this." About four weeks later, after making peace with NBC, Paar was back in front of the cameras and began, "As I was saying before I was interrupted ..." (NBC)

Paar, who hosted the show from 1957 to 1962, wasn't one to keep his opinions to himself. That was never more true than in 1960, explains Times staffer Dennis McLellan, when the NBC censor cut Paar's humorous story dealing with a British couple who wanted to rent a cottage and the Swedish real estate agent's confusion over the letters W.C. -- the common British abbreviation for a water closet, which the agent assumed to mean wayside chapel. By then, the show was being taped earlier in the evening and the network censor cut the nearly five-minute story without informing Paar. Paar, concerned that the censored joke made viewers think he had committed a "terrible obscenity," stunned his audience -- and announcer Hugh Downs -- the next night by walking off the show. "I'm leaving 'The Tonight Show,' " an emotional Paar told his audience. "There must be a better way of making a living than this." About four weeks later, after making peace with NBC, Paar was back in front of the cameras and began, "As I was saying before I was interrupted ..."